Standards Based Feedback & All-Star Voting

So Russell Westbrook is having a record setting year with the NBA's Thunder but was not named a starter for this year's All-Star Game. Let's suppose Westbrook would like to improve his standing so that in the future he can be an All-Star starter. It would be helpful for him to know why he didn't make it this year.

The NBA gives a "Weighted Score" (or grade) to each player. Westbrook's score was 2. The players starting above him, Steph Curry and James Harden, also scored 2s.

So how can Westbrook improve if all he knows is that he has a 2 - just like the others? He would need more "standards based" feedback. And that's exactly what the NBA gave him.

The NBA breaks All-Star voting down into 3 categories or standards. Players receive a Fan Rank, a Player Rank, and a Media Rank. Those ranks are then averaged together to get the Weighted Score. If a tie-breaker is needed, the NBA looks at the player's Fan Rank.

Westbrook was ranked 1 by both the players and the media. But he was ranked 3 by the fans. Steph Curry was 3 by both the players and the media but 1 by the fans. Harden was ranked 2 by all 3 groups.

So based on this feedback, if Westbrook wants to improve his Weighted Score he needs to do something to improve his popularity with the fans. While that might be difficult or the strategies to do that might not be clear, at least he knows what he needs to do to improve.

And this is the beauty of Standards Based Feedback. If you tell a student he has an 83 he doesn't know how to improve other than get more points. But if you break down your feedback by standards, then a student can identify his strengths and weaknesses and make plans to improve LEARNING as opposed to just raising a grade.